Musings and Photos about Life and Real Estate Development in Post-Industrial Brooklyn and New York City

Wednesday, November 07, 2007

World's Biggest Ferris Wheel in Coney Beijing

This is not in Brooklyn, but we found it on the Coney Island Message Board under the headline "What if Coney Did This?", which creates a (tenuous) Brooklyn angle. As it turns out, the Chinese are building a mind-bogglingly big ferris wheel in Beijing that will be 682 feet tall and carry 1,920 passengers. By comparison, the Wonder Wheel is 150 feet tall. The Beijing wheel will be the third-tallest structure in Beijing. The BBC says:

Officials say visitors will get "an unsurpassed view of the city", although some analysts have joked that pollution might stop visitors from seeing much.

When completed, the $99m (£50m) structure will eclipse the Star of Nanchang - the current highest wheel, also in China, which stands at 160m. The next-closest competitor, the London Eye, is more than 70m shorter, standing at a mere 135m.

Some early renderings of Thor's Coney Island redevelopment plan contained a giant ferris wheel on a new pier. Should you want to learn more about the Beijing wheel there are a couple of dozen stories here.